🔥Sometimes I think our leaders say things that unintentionally reveal how they see the future of Nigeria and how they think of the biggest problems in our country
I recently watched a video of our First Lady Mrs Remi Tinubu recommending that our young people should embrace micro businesses like kuli-kuli akomo lo le and akara mini jojo production as a pathway to economic empowerment, and I just shook my head and then decided that perhaps it is time for a serious national conversation on how to really deal with the mass unemployment in the nation which has been building up since even before Tinubu declared his Emilokan to essentially own the problem as our current president
Now I laughed at the serious suggestion of Senator Tinubu Not because there is anything wrong with selling akara mini jojo as a business
Not because there is anything wrong with making kuli-kuli a Komo lole
There is dignity in honest labour. I have enormous respect for every Nigerian who wakes up every morning to feed his or her family through legitimate work.
An akara seller deserves our respect. A vulcanizer deserves our respect.
A mechanic deserves our respect. Every honest hustle has dignity.
So, That is not my issue.
My issue is this:
Is this really the highest level of economic imagination our leaders can offer a nation with tens of millions of unemployed young people? Is this how we plan to solve a mass unemployment situation in our country ?
That is the question.
Because Nigeria is not facing the unemployment of a few thousand people.
We are facing one of the largest youth unemployment crises anywhere in the world.
Millions of graduates.
Millions of skilled young people.
Millions of dreamers.
Millions of frustrated families.
Millions of youths who are economically stranded that millions are still living with their parents 5 years after graduation and no serious jobs or income
And our response from the highest levels of leadership in the country to this unacceptable unemployment epidemic is…
“Perhaps you should sell kuli kuli akara.”
What!! With respect, that is not an economic strategy.
That is survival advice.
And There is a world of difference between the two .
The tragedy isn’t that Nigerians sell akara.
The tragedy is when our leaders appear to think that is the ceiling of our youths’ ambition or the solution to being unemployed in their millions
Seyi Tinubu or some woke close to mummy should help me tell his step-mother that The world has changed.
India exports software engineers.
The Philippines exports virtual assistants.
Eastern Europe exports cybersecurity experts.
South Korea exports technology.
China exports innovation.
The United States exports ideas.
Meanwhile, Nigeria keeps exporting its brightest brains while encouraging many of those who remain to think smaller instead of bigger.
That should trouble every patriot.
This is no longer 1975.
Today, a young Nigerian sitting in Fadeyi, Enugu, Kano, Abeokuta or Yenagoa can earn dollars working remotely for companies in London, Toronto, Dubai or New York.
Plenty jobs are open globally for Software development even for those with zero tech skills
In Artificial Intelligence.
In Cybersecurity.
In Digital marketing.
In aai videos and Animation.
In m Cloud computing.
In Video editing with zero tech skills
In Content creation.
In Virtual assistance.
In Data analytics.
In Prompt engineering that anyone can learn in 30 days
In E-commerce.
These are industries creating millions of jobs globally. These are the jobs that is solving mass unemployment for serious countries not kuli kuli business that is not really scalable without serious capital.
Many of those jobs or employment opportunities require nothing more than a laptop, reliable internet and quality training.
That is where visionary governments should be investing their imagination. In quality digital business training . Sure everyone will not do computer stuff but we are talking about mas solutions to mass unemployment. Right now digital is in the top 3 globally to handle that
Imagine if every local government in Nigeria had a Digital Skills Academy instead of another abandoned civic centre or if our legislators are busy creating Tech hubs that 1000s of youths can use instead of handing out sowing machines to 50 people and calling press conferences and doing beautiful videos showing sowing machines
Imagine if every federal constituency established an Innovation Hub instead of another uncompleted constituency project that gulped billions but not usable by anybody
Imagine if NYSC members graduated with globally marketable digital skills instead of merely collecting monthly allowance. Imagine if NYSC makes participants spend 20 hours a week in digital skills related works so they can learn on the job instead of sending them to some MINISTERIES where all they do is collect alawe for a year with no productive work or productive self employment learning in the job
I remember a few years ago where I and my team offered to provide 30-days of digital skills empowerment or youth Corpers for free with NYSC only getting the venues and participants . They didn’t even bother to respond or maybe they expected me to come and bribe somebody to train our youths for free. Disgusting!
Imagine if our lawmakers competed over who created the most technology startups instead of who distributed the most pepper grinding machines.
Now that would be leadership.
Because you do not solve a 21st-century unemployment crisis with 19th-century thinking.
You do not solve a mass problem with micro solutions of 59 tailors here and there and 20 pepper grinders here and there
You certainly do not prepare your youths for global competition by preparing them merely for local survival with kuli kuli or akara selling
Government should stop preparing our children for survival hustle. Government should start preparing them to compete for serious thriving
In my opinion and I have said this for years, We don’t have only an unemployment crisis.
We have an imagination crisis in government.
Our youths deserve more than learning how to survive.
They deserve the opportunity to dominate.
To innovate.
To invent.
To build billion-dollar companies.
To create intellectual property.
To earn global incomes without ever leaving Nigeria.
That should be the national dream.
Not merely expanding the number of roadside businesses.
And before anyone deliberately misunderstands me, let me repeat once again:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with akara.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with kuli-kuli.
The issue is not the dignity of those businesses.
The issue is whether that is the level of vision we expect from leaders entrusted with solving one of the greatest unemployment crises in Africa.
Because leadership is not merely about helping people survive. Leadership is about creating systems that allow millions to thrive.
So here is my humble challenge to those Senator Remi Tinubu and others like her in power.
Stop thinking only about petty trading.
Start thinking about digital transformation.
Stop measuring success by how many youths sell akara.
Start measuring success by how many build software…
…by how many launch startups…
…by how many export digital services…
…by how many file patents…
…by how many create global brands…
…and earn international income from Nigeria.
That is how nations become wealthy.
That is how unemployment is defeated.
That is how you build the future.
Because…
You cannot send your youths to spend 5 years in university and then be telling them to go start kuli kuli business as a solution to unemployment
You cannot give university or even high school diplomas to your youths and then tell them to go and be frying akara for a living
Madam, the fact is Nigeria cannot fry its way out of unemployment.
We cannot roast our way into prosperity.
We cannot kuli-kuli our way into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The future belongs to nations that teach their youths to create, innovate and compete globally—not merely survive locally.
And perhaps the saddest lesson from this entire Kuli-Kuli Economy conversation is this:
The greatest poverty exposed is not the poverty of Nigerian youths…
It is the poverty of imagination among too many of those leading us.
I am Dr. Ope Banwo, The Mayor of Fadeyi And that’s my rant for today.
Ope Banwo
Mayor Of Fadeyi
